Thorn Queen Page 0,50

question.

Kiyo gave me a rueful smile. "Dorian used to watch you like a starving man who wants meat. Now he looks at you like he wants seconds."

I didn't say anything. No response came to mind.

"It's okay," continued Kiyo almost amiably. "I know it happened when we were apart. What's past is past-so long as it doesn't mess with our present."

It was rather magnanimous of him, and I felt both grateful and guilty. "It's in the past," I agreed. "It has nothing to do with anything anymore."

The first shaman Roland had directed us to was a guy named Art. Like Roland and me, Art lived in his own piece of suburbia, in a large house that hardly looked like it belonged to someone who battled spirits and gentry. The sides were painted a sunny yellow, and the yard-which bore the signs of daily tending-was even ringed with a white picket fence. I could hear children playing down the street.

In fact, Art himself was out in the yard, weeding flower beds as the afternoon light turned orange. I pegged his age around thirty or so. A red snake tattoo coiled around one of his arms while a stylized raven showed on the other. No doubt there were more under his shirt. He glanced up and smiled when we stopped beside him on the house's sidewalk.

"You must be Eugenie," he said, standing up. He brushed dirt off his gloves and looked apologetic. "I'd shake hands, but..."

I smiled back. "No problem. This is Kiyo."

The two men exchanged nods of greeting, and Art directed us around the side of the house. "Roland said you wanted to chat, right? How about we sit down in the back? Let me clean up, and I'll go get us something to drink."

Kiyo and I followed his direction and found ourselves sitting at a cute, umbrella-covered table in a backyard even more lush than the front. Though a bit more humid, Yellow River's climate wasn't that far off from Tucson's, so I could only imagine the amount of water and labor it took to maintain this greenery. A funny thought came to me, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"What?" asked Kiyo. He'd been watching a hummingbird dance around a red-flowered bush that flanked the house.

"I was thinking I need Art to come do landscaping in the Thorn Land."

"I think that might blow your cover."

"Likely. I don't even know if he crosses over very much."

"If he does, it's probably only a matter of time before he finds out and tells Roland. Actually, it's only a matter of time before anyone does that."

I made a face. Roland knew a lot of shamans, all around the country. "Yeah, I know."

Art stepped out through the back patio, gloves gone and a new shirt on. He set down a small cooler, carefully sliding the glass and its screen shut again. The drapes hanging on the other side of the patio were blue and purple watercolors laced with silvery threads that I envied after my own had been ripped up by a storm I'd inadvertently caused. Between his excellent decor and yard, I was feeling like a lame homeowner.

He opened the cooler. "I didn't know what you wanted, so I brought some options."

The cooler revealed an assortment of pop and beer. Kiyo opted for the latter; I took the former. The hot summer afternoon had cooled down to a pleasant temperature, and the shadows cast by the trees helped too. The memory of the hot journey to Dorian's was still with me, though, and I drank my Coke gratefully.

"This is a great yard," I said. "Wish I had the patience. Mine's kind of a rock garden."

Art grinned, crinkling up the lines around his eyes. They were an azure blue that stood out against his sun-weathered skin. "But that's fashionable up there, isn't it?"

"Yeah, kind of. But there's a fine line between a fashionable arrangement of sand and rocks, and, well...just a pile of sand and rocks."

He laughed again. "Well, I'm sure you have better things to do. Roland tells me you're keeping busy now that he's retired."

"'Retired' is a dubious term. It's hard for him to sit still, knowing I'm out there doing business by myself."

"And I hear you've got some business questions to ask me?"

Right to the point. I liked that. "You've got a big crossroads here."

"I do," he agreed. "Keeps me busy."

"You get a lot of gentry crossing over?"

He took a long sip of his beer and considered. "Well, there are always gentry crossing